SeeCalifornia.com

Having an affair? Your spouse may not know – but Yahoo does. Any interests, ailments or projects you’d rather not share? You’re sharing them with Yahoo, perhaps forever. Starting June 1, 2013 Yahoo is giving users just 30 days to switch over to their new email platform, and agree to content scanning and analyzing of your communications on all emails sent through Yahoo accounts. Talk about abusive! Everyone who corresponds with a Yahoo email account holder will also have their own message content scanned, analyzed, and stored by Yahoo, even if they themselves have not agreed to Yahoo’s new terms of service.

Yahoo email users are required to make the transition and  let the company perform “content scanning and analyzing of your communications content” to target ads, offer products, and perform “abuse protection.” This means any message that Yahoo’s algorithms find disturbing could flag a user as a bully, a threat, or worse.

How to shore up your privacy:

• Use startpage.com for web searches. It doesn’t record your search history or information about you.
• Get on the list to sign up for information on the release of StartMail, a private email service  that will not scan its users’ correspondence.
•  Don’t use of Facebook and other services that force you to give up your right to privacy.
• Avoid talking on your cell phone in cafes where Google may be roaming and picking up snippets of conversation.

Harvard-trained privacy expert Katherine Albrecht who is helping to develop StartMail (startmail.com) says: “It’s time we start paying attention to these policies, because they’re growing more shockingly abusive every day.”

Law professor Lori Andrews has written a fantastic book about Internet privacy that will help you get up to speed, as well.